Freed From Behind The Paywall: My Favourite Writing Exercise
It's a bit creepy - but brilliant.
Ten Shun!
I am not a huge fan of writing exercises. The best exercise by far is writing - and reading - itself.
But there are a handful of them I would recommend - some of which I will highlight at a later date in this newsletter.
However there is one exercise in particular that achieves remarkable results every time.
Apart from the fact it might get you arrested, I can thoroughly recommend it - either as a group exercise or an individual.
The exercise is called ‘Kidnap A Character’.
I started using it - on the excellent advice of the director Richard Skinner - at the Faber Academy when I taught there.
This is how it worked.
When I had my 16 or so students seated, in the A.M. - as they settled down for what they assumed was a morning of gentle banter about writing - I simply sent them back out on the street.
Once there, they had to separate, then wander about the streets for a bit. It was suggested they focus on betting shops, museums, hotel lobbies, parks - any bustling public space .
Then they had to choose someone who looked vaguely interesting - and follow them without the subject noticing for the next hour or so.
Having selected their target, they were asked to compile a set of notes about that person. How tall or short they were, what colour hair, what they were wearing, the texture of that clothing, their accent, the way they walked, and - if they could listen in for long enough - the kinds of things they said. (In pursuit of this latter goal, students were advised to maybe go ask them directions, or a general, neutral question. Just to get a sense of the person.)
Other than that, all they were asked to do was observe and describe. They were told to make notes on their phones rather than notepads, as it was less conspicuous. If they were ‘busted’ by their subjects, they were immediately told to confess what they were doing - carrying out a writing exercise on behalf of their tutor.
( Occasionally students did get spotted - but so far as I am aware once they explained their motivations, none of the subjects were upset or objected.)
Then, in the third hour of the exercise, students returned to the Faber Academy and were asked, each in turn, to talk for 4-5 minutes about their character.
This is where the power of the exercise became apparent. Nearly every student had become entranced by their subject’s story - or imagined story. Many had become so addicted to the surveillance that one had got on a train with a subject in order to keep observing them. Another went and got a haircut, after their subject went to the hairdresser, so they could keep finding out more about the person they had chosen.
Amazing stories emerged. One student surveilled a person begging for money on the street with a ‘hungry and homeless’ sign. She observed how much money the man got during a certain period, and then followed him when he left his begging spot.
He immediately went to the bookmakers, where he staked the money he had begged on a horse. She noted that he had a substantial win, but, to her surprise, he did not look at all pleased. Then he met with some well-dressed, apparently prosperous friends and they had a coffee together.
I can’t remember any more of the details, but the character himself was fascinating. Was he really homeless? Why did he seem disappointed when he won his bet? Who were the well-dressed friends he followed up his win with? Did he return to his pitch afterwards and get some more money for gambling? Was he a gambling adddict, or a different kind of addict, or just someone who liked a flutter?
Nearly all of the characters students followed produced rich stories. Students most often noticed contradictions - the man wearing an expensive suit with cheap trainers, the woman who wore a generic anorak over a designer dress. They noted the way their subjects used their bodies - their hand gestures, hair tugging, nose picking, crotch-scratching.
The exercise excited and stimulated every one of the students - because they were learning close observation - an absolutely key part of a writer’s toolkit. And they were learning about body language ( as Chuck Palahniuk observes, ‘language is our second language’ - body language coming first in human evolution before speech.)
They were also being prompted towards stories. Because so many of the characters suggested a flurry of possibilities for narrative
After they had talked to the rest of the students about the characters they had followed, the next exercise was for each student to imagine the character’s object of affection.
Then they were asked to write about that object of affection - whether husband, lover, child, dog or teacher - in the imagined voice of the character they had followed. How they related to that character. What they meant to them.
Then the students were asked to write a scene in which the respective characters   - the central character and object of affection - meet one other.  The students were told to make sure that the characters each had a separate and distinct personality, and that they should maintain that personality throughout the exchange between them
What were the characters’ names? Did their names suggest their characters at all?
Students were asked to describe the scene in which the two characters met. The characters wern’’t allowed to go anywhere else.
Now the exercise was moving from a matter of observation to a matter of creation. A certain tension is going to be sparked between the two characters. A narrative isn’t only about characters but the relationship between characters. These are dynamic, like a character itself, but also stable, like a character itself. Furthermore, this exercise becomes an exploration of dialogue and description. What physical space do they occupy? Are there concealed tensions between the two characters? Something that isn’t being said that needs to be said?
Finally, the students were asked to have their characters - by now almost entirely fictional - either go on a journey together or go to one of their homes together. And have a disagreement there.
What astonished me about this exercise was how consistently students produced excellent work ( albeit only a few pages long ). The characters felt three dimensional. There was conflict. There were questions being asked. There was a journey.
What we were getting were tiny stories - albeit rarely, at that stage, with a beginning, middle and end. But they were stories that held promise and excited the students and produced some of the best work of their entire course.
There’s nothing to stop you from doing the same for yourself - or with a friend or friends ( we would do group work in the class, each reading the writing to one another as the story progressed).
Just keep your head down. And make sure you have your alibi ready if you get busted. If that doesn’t play well with your target - well, you can always take the nuclear option.
Run like hell.
At Ease!
Please share this post if you can. It only takes you a second and it makes my efforts feel worthwhile.
Is this exercise too creepy to actually use? Or is it a valid learning tool?
What’s your take?
Sideways comment Tim: into what receptacles do you bottle your Philosophy Jam? And have you patented the brand? 'Philosophy Jam' . . . it is a brand, surely?
Kind of creepy, but I like that! The actual exercise itself also has a lot of pot-boiler plot potential. No doubt written a million times, but still interesting.